Ninja Squirrel is back

Remember the squirrel that was raiding our bird feeder last winter? He’s back. We put the square feeder out a few weeks ago and it didn’t take Ninja Squirrel long to rediscover it. As much as we enjoy his antics, we don’t really want to feed him, so we’ve been trying to outsmart him.

The first attempt was to put safflower seeds in the tray, which squirrels apparently don’t like. Well, that might be true, but it didn’t stop Ninja Squirrel. He just pushed the safflower seeds aside to get to the corn and sunflower seeds.

Next we tried putting the block of food in a rectangular mesh frame, figuring the birds would still be able to get to the seeds, while the squirrel would have difficulty getting onto this much smaller contraption and also have a hard time reaching through the wire frame. That deterred him for all of two days, after which he figured out how to balance himself. He basically just hangs upside down to get at the food from below. Check this: